On June 16, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) approved Indiana’s Returning Education to the States Waiver, the third such waiver ED has granted, following Iowa and Louisiana. The waiver allows Indiana to consolidate its federal funding streams for state-level activities and reduce administrative costs for some Indiana school districts by consolidating two different federal funding streams. Unlike the Iowa and Louisiana waivers, which were largely limited to funding and administrative flexibility, Indiana’s waiver modifies core requirements set forth by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). By approving this waiver, ED has effectively expanded what states can count toward academic weightings beyond the statutory requirements, raising important questions for any state watching how far ESSA flexibility can extend.

Indiana’s waiver removes the requirement that academic indicators receive “much greater weight” in Indiana’s accountability system. It allows the state to count academic-based measures (such as AP, IB, and dual-credit coursework) in that weighting, even though these fall outside of ESSA’s statutory definition of an academic indicator. This challenges the core of ESSA’s accountability architecture and raises a question every state should be asking whether or not they ever apply for a similar waiver: What does it mean for my state’s accountability system when the major tentpoles of federal accountability guidance shift substantially?

In a companion post, WestEd’s Senior Director of Assessment, Sarah Quesen, examines the three forces shaping assessment coherence, a set of dynamics that directly shape how accountability systems are designed and operate. This blog post turns to accountability, focusing on the opportunities and challenges presented by ED’s decision for state accountability systems.

On the one hand, this decision creates opportunities for states to create coherence between accountability systems and school improvement efforts. On the other hand, the elimination of federal accountability guardrails introduces the risk of diluting the focus on academic standards in already crowded accountability systems. How states navigate the tensions introduced by this additional flexibility could have a large impact—in both positive and negative directions—on student outcomes in upcoming years.

The Opportunity: Additional Tools to Align Accountability Systems With Key Priorities

This waiver gives states a critical moment to reconsider whether their accountability system supports the larger goals of the state education system. Ideally, accountability systems communicate important information about student outcomes and help coordinate systems to improve school improvement efforts (Perie, 2007). That goal sits at the center of a white paper WestEd published this past fall, Refining Statewide School Accountability Systems, which proposes a four-level hierarchy for this kind of redesign work.

States can leverage ED’s push for ESSA waivers to realign their system with key statewide priorities to better coordinate support for improving literacy and numeracy rates. But this work is complex. To avoid losing focus as systems evolve, states need to keep a few core concepts in view:

• Clearly articulate the goals of the state’s education system. Well-articulated principles help an accountability system create a shared language for discussing school performance, keep attention focused on valued outcomes, and connect reporting to action—having exactly what a system needs in place before it takes on new flexibility.
• Make sure the accountability system zeroes in on the state’s goals. New flexibility is an invitation to reconsider system design and school improvement alignment. While states should consider the promise of new indicators that better align with school improvement efforts, system streamlining should also be on the table if the system has become overly complex and divorced from meaningful action.
• Strengthen the link between accountability data and school improvement. Accountability only matters if it drives action, and that requires intentional design, not just additional measures. This requires defining the specific actions an accountability system is meant to influence and assigning clear roles and responsibilities at each level of the system (state, district, and school) for turning that information into action. In some cases, adding a new indicator (such as academic growth and early warning indicators) can provide important and useful signals from the state about approaches to school improvement. However, using flexibility to expand what’s measured without strengthening the connection between accountability data and school improvement often adds complexity without improving outcomes.
• Communicate these changes clearly and thoroughly to interest holders. Any technical change to an accountability system signals what a state values, intentionally or not. States need to explain what changed and why to avoid confusion when technical adjustments surface in report cards or data releases.

The Challenge: Three Forces Working Against Accountability Coherence

While additional flexibilities through waivers can introduce useful approaches to accountability that states can harness, these same flexibilities also introduce additional pressures on the system. The same three forces shaping assessment coherence covered in the assessment companion are also present in accountability.

Force 1: Accountability systems tend to grow but rarely subtract. Like assessments, new indicators are politically difficult to remove once added, even after they stop serving their original purpose. A system that only grows dilutes focus on what matters most.

Force 2: Accountability systems can be wonky. Clarifying and simplifying messaging to support a state’s goals is both vital and challenging when making technical changes to accountability systems.

Force 3: Managing competing priorities within an accountability system can be tricky. When systems are reopened, new initiatives, priorities, and tools can be incorporated through additional indicators. This can strengthen systems, but it can also create a floodgate effect in which measures accumulate in ways that are not always aligned with a coherent design. Each new indicator may broaden what the system captures, but it also makes it harder to understand and use for measuring progress across schools and districts.

Together, these forces tend to muddy the same water this waiver gives states a chance to clear.

How WestEd Can Help

WestEd partners with states and districts to design practical solutions that meet the needs of educators, families, and students. Our approach is rooted in a clear vision, responsive to local contexts, and actionable for educators and communities, helping states connect accountability data to meaningful action. WestEd’s State Strategy Lab can prepare state leaders and their teams to respond to changes in the state and federal policy landscapes.

Additionally, WestEd’s Center for Standards, Assessment & Accountability (CSAA) supports states in integrating new indicators, strengthening communication through dashboards and reporting, or building stronger links between accountability and school improvement.

Contact us to discuss how WestEd can partner with your state on this work.